Research ethics and clinical trials: Fostering collaboration with research participants

Accountability in research is a concept that applies to researchers and study participants alike. Human subjects play an active part in the success or failure of a clinical trial by virtue of their understanding of a study's goals expectations of personal gain, and adherence to study design. Trials must be designed to address patient concerns, offer an improved consent process, and move beyond our narrow conception of “patient rights.”; Problems with protocol adherence may be reduced by conceptualizing clinical research as an endeavor with mutual accountability within a relational ethic.     

Role Balance Among White Married Couples

We generate models predicting wives' and husbands' feelings of overall balance across roles. Drawing on fine‐grained data about marital lifestyles and time use, we find few predictors that are the same for both partners. Both report greater role balance when their level of parental attachment to children is higher and when their marital satisfaction is greater, but gendered time use gives rise to important differences. Wives report greater balance when they have more paid work hours but have fewer of these hours on weekends. Wives' balance is also greater when they feel less financial strain, have less leisure time alone with their children, more couple leisure alone with their husbands, and more social network involvement. Husbands' contribute to wives' balance when they report more relationship maintenance in the marriage and more leisure with their children at those times when wives are not present. Husbands' own role balance increases as their income rises, but it decreases as their work hours rise. Husbands' balance also rises with more nuclear family leisure, and it lessens as their leisure alone increases. Our discussion highlights the ways that gendered marital roles lead to these different correlates of balance.     

Child Marriage in Canada

Child marriage, defined as formal or informal marriage before the age of 18, is a globally recognized indicator of gender inequality. Canada has placed itself at the forefront of global efforts to end child marriage as part of its commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Despite these global aspirations, child marriage remains legal throughout Canada. Data from vital statistics agencies and recent censuses indicate that child marriage, although rare, is practiced across the country. In 2016, nearly 2,300 children between 15 and 17 years of age were in union, a prevalence of 0.2 percent. The vast majority (98 percent) of these were informal, common‐law unions. Demographic patterns of child marriage in Canada are similar to those observed in many low‐ and middle‐income countries. Girls were far more likely to be married as children than boys and typically wed much older spouses. There were marked differences in the prevalence of child marriage across the country, with the highest estimates found in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the territories. These findings draw attention to the discrepancy between Canada's domestic law and its foreign policy. They also highlight thorny challenges inherent in efforts to eradicate this practice in Canada and elsewhere.     

Indigenous and gendered persons and peoples in business ethics education: Intersections of Indigenous wisdoms and de Beauvoirian existentialism

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business ethics textbooks include Indigenous and gendered persons and peoples and whether they acknowledge Indigenous philosophies and theories. We explore 363 cases from eighteen (18) business ethics textbooks. A form and theme based content analysis was employed to help us better understand the inclusion, obfuscation and omission of Indigenous and gendered persons. A purpose of business ethics education is to disrupt injustice and oppressive practices in business. We find that business ethics education can provide more inclusive and respectful cases as it relates to Indigenous and gendered characters. There are cases that marginalize, obfuscate and omit Indigenous peoples, females, and gender diverse persons. This study contributes to diversity scholarship by identifying ways in which Indigenous and gendered persons and peoples can be included in management and business ethics education.     

Family systems functioning,family health roles,and utilization of physical health services

The purpose of the study reported here is to determine the relationship between family systems functioning, family health role, and family utilization of health services. The research is based in the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems (Olson, Sprenkle, & Russel, 1979). Family functioning variables include family level of cohesion, family adaptability, and family type, as measured by FACES II. Family health role (i.e., leadership role and acceptance of sick role) and utilization of health services are measured by scales of the investigator-developed Family Health Questionnaire. The sample consists of 140 parents of 70 families, composed of two parents with children under 25 years of age living at home. Analysis reveals significant relationships between the family level of adaptability and acceptance of the sick role, in conjunction with significant gender and gender interaction effects. There are no significant differences between family cohesion levels or family typologies with the health variables.Su An Arnn Phipps is an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing Graduate Program, Tulsa, 700 N. Greenwood, Tulsa, OK 74106. Her research interests include family systems functioning and family physical health, couples' infertility experience, and fathers' role(s) in family health. She received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in Family Relations and Child Development.     

Understanding home: a critical review of the literature

In recent years there has been a proliferation of writing on the meaning of home within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and philosophy. Although many researchers now understand home as a multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for multidisciplinary research in the field, there has been little sustained reflection and critique of the multidisciplinary field of home research and the diverse, even contradictory meanings of this term. This paper brings together and examines the dominant and recurring ideas about home represented in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. It raises the question whether or not home is (a) place(s), (a) space(s), feeling(s), practices, and/or an active state of state of being in the world? Home is variously described in the literature as conflated with or related to house, family, haven, self, gender, and journeying. Many authors also consider notions of being‐at‐home, creating or making home and the ideal home. In an effort to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations about the meaning and experience of home each of these themes are briefly considered in this critical literature review.     

A call for greater attention to the role of employers in developing,transforming, and implementing family policies

The authors contend that employer-initiated workplace policies should be considered as part of the patchwork that constitutes U.S. family policy. To provide a background, historical evidence of employer-initiated policies intentionally used as family policies is summarized. The view is then explicated that failure to take economic conditions and workplace policies into account may lead to faulty conclusions about the reasons for major changes in family life. The current status of selected employer-initiated workplace policies and recent trends is summarized. Next, some of the dilemmas inherent in considering connections between government- and employer-initiated policies are identified. Finally, suggestions for future directions are offered. The article should be considered with the following caveat in mind: the focus is exclusively on the influence of policies on families, but families are not merely reactive. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests center on relationships between jobs and family life, with emphasis on work-family relationships in small businesses, and on adult workers as developing individuals. Her research interests focus on the intersection of social problems and family problems, including families and work, coping with unemployment, and adult children as caregivers of dependent parents. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University.